


The Sleeping Habits of Selfsoulfriends

by GoldenThreads



Category: New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenThreads/pseuds/GoldenThreads
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small collection of sleepy moments. (v1/v3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> From v1. Coda to Warlock's New York adventure with Spidey. The bedroom he ends up in is clearly _someone's._

“Oh no, you have _got_ to be kidding me.”

Warlock—for it has to be Warlock, much too tall and awkwardly bony even in a slumbering humanform—rolls over on his side, snuggles down into Doug’s bedding, and declares, “ZZZZZZ.”

“Real funny, pal.” Doug stomps over to yank the sheets away. It’s been a long day of worrying himself sick over the alien’s sudden disappearance, and he’s in absolutely no mood to play this game. If Warlock wants to experiment with sleep, fine. But no way is he doing it here.

For all his fuss, the sheets don’t budge an inch.

“Shhhh,” Warlock hisses from the corner of his mouth, his face still perfectly composed. “Sleepland.”

“Go be sleepland somewhere else.”

“Negative.”

_“Warlock!”_

The alien’s eyes pop open, and his eyebrows flare ridiculously on that slipping human face. “Negative! Self found perfect bed. Like Goldilocksperson!” He turns over onto his other side, showing his back to Doug, and starts snoring loudly.

“But this is _my_ bed. Why can’t you just make your own?”

With a dramatic huff, Warlock flops over yet again. “NO. Self will sleep here, because here is most viable sleeping location, and if Self does not sleep then Self will be notrealbeing and selfriends will hate Self and—”

Doug grabs the bed’s second pillow and tosses it at his face to shut him up. “None of that, 'Lock.”

A shrill, mournful whine comes from under the pillow, only halfway muffled, and doesn’t let up until Doug finally gives in and grumbles, “Scooch over.”

The bed really isn’t built for two. Even once Doug gets settled under the covers, he’s still perilously close to the edge, and Warlock has nearly halved himself to fit. At least the alien isn’t hogging the blankets—yet.

“What was wrong with everyone else’s beds?” Doug asks tiredly.

Warlock peeks over at him. Already his humanform is in shambles, and he has the sheets pulled up so high over his face that only his wide eyes are visible. “Repose conditions unacceptable. Firstfriendrahne’s bed too soft and Selfriendbobby’s bed too small and Chiefriendani’s bed too hard and—”

“And mine is—”

“Just right!” he chirps.

“Of course it is.”

“Selfsoulfriend always just right.”

Doug gives him a funny look, then laughs. “Okay, okay. I get it. But this is only for tonight. We’ll have to figure something else out tomorrow.”

In response, the alien mumbles something in a tiny voice. Doug nudges at him under the covers with one chilly toe, and at once Warlock blazes warm and curls his own feetconstructs around him.

“Suggestion: Bunk beds…?” Cue the puppy dog eyes, glowing like eager little night-lights.

There is absolutely zero chance of that happening—Doug knows all too well he’d never get a wink of sleep ever again—but it’s so hard to bring himself to crush any of Warlock’s cherished dreams, no matter how impossible or exasperating they may be.

“Ask me again in the morning,” he sighs at last. There’s only a slim chance that Warlock will have forgotten, but it’s his best shot at dodging the issue. Maybe he can get Sam and Dani to issue an executive rejection of the idea.

Warlock beams. “Affirmative! Good night, Selfdearestsoulfriendoug. Enjoy sleepland dreamscape.”

All of his shimmering lights flick off, golds replaced by the faintest of blues, and he shuts his eyes as though he actually means to power down his sensors and give sleeping an honest attempt. But every few minutes he cracks one eye open to check if Doug has fallen asleep yet.

Sleeping is _hard_. It’s too much to ask for him to succeed on the first attempt. Observing is a much better first step. Warlock is _awfully_ good at observing. And then, once the bunk beds come—then he’ll be ready.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From v3. Fix-it for Douglock's nightmare in Excalibur 104. ([1](http://31.media.tumblr.com/b66203a6b7e87a9f9d35062cc526d897/tumblr_mqp8z6rGca1rn838oo1_1280.png), [2](http://25.media.tumblr.com/61c994d6af646100f7c88fdf94c75962/tumblr_mqp8z6rGca1rn838oo2_1280.png))

Fall in Westchester, the same old dream. The cold wind shivers through his hair, rattling like the dead leaves on the branches above, and his chest aches tight and hollow all at once. Douglock is a trespasser here, this he knows beyond doubt, but he stands rooted to the spot as firmly as the tired old oaks behind him. Always this scene, always this inescapable truth locked in a lesson he’s too stubborn to learn.

“C’mon, slowpoke!” Kitty calls, waiting with the others in a half-circle around that all too familiar grave.

He reaches out a hand in protest, falters, lets it drop to his side as his voice dies in his throat—he hates this script. Douglock could close his eyes, shut off every single sensor, and still this not-quite-nightmare would echo within him as the most virulent of viruses. It’s only a dream, only a dream, yet they cannot hear him and they cannot see him and it _hurts_. He never thought to crave individuality among the Phalanx, but now all he wants is something of his own, something more than a second-hand name and hand-me-down friendships, something like that peerless affection in Rahne’s eyes as she watches the earth shudder and break.

Doug Ramsey rises from the ground as though it’s the only bed he’s ever known and shakes the dirt from his golden hair. “Hey guys,” he says brightly, offering the girls a grin as they swoop in to embrace him.

Turning away from the happy reunion, Douglock hangs his head and tries to disappear. He’s almost relieved, wretched as it sounds. Everyone got just what they wanted, everyone but him, but if he wanted them to be happy then logically this must be just what he wanted, too. He clenches his fists at his side, chiding himself. He knows how this story goes, knows his own part is already over—but maybe he just didn’t play it well enough, maybe if he got a redo they’d see something more in him than ghosts, maybe—

“Aren’t you coming with, partner?”

Startled, he raises his head to find Doug standing right in front of him, a hand stretched out in welcome to match the winning smile on his lips. There’s a glitch in the splay of those outstretched fingers, the stutter of a second memory trapped just beneath the surface, and the funny little tilt of that grin sets butterflies aflutter in Douglock’s chest.

“The gang’s off to grab a bite in town,” Doug says. “Not up for it?”

He opens his mouth, closes it again. This isn’t how the dream goes, this is—

“What’s the matter? Are you stuck here or something?”

He glances down at his feet, at those tendrils of gold rooted deep into the earth. Doug’s hand is still waiting, like he’d gladly uproot him if given the chance, but maybe there has to be at least one ghost in the graveyard. Better for everyone if it’s just the knock-off.

“You go on ahead,” he manages at last, voice wavering in a tinny echo of Doug’s genuine warmth. He can’t quite bring himself to meet his doppelganger’s friendly smile, so he glances across the cemetery to where Kitty and Rahne are standing with their hands on their hips and adds meekly, “They’ve been waiting a long time.”

He feels so terribly selfish.

“All right.” Doug’s face falls, brows furrowed for just a moment before he looks to the girls and shouts, “Maybe next time!”

“What are you—?”

Doug laughs, eyes crinkling with unbearable fondness. “What, like you weren’t waiting too? Come on, selfsoulfriend, let’s—”

 

* 

 

Warlock wakes with a violent jolt, diagnostics program blaring a frantic alarm at his very core, and instinctively curls in on himself as he tries to reign in his jittery scripts. The outdated diagnostics sweep freezes up when it fails to locate a backup system that no longer exists, the alarm trips a stutter of rapid heartbeats from his gestalt scripts, and his core blurs among one too many splintered memories. For a moment he isn’t sure where he is, let alone when, but then a warm hand settles on his back and that voice he adores like none other asks, “Everything okay, partner?”

Two little eye-stalks peek out from Warlock’s frazzled huddle of black wiring to survey his surroundings. San Francisco, living room, selfsoulfriend. _Home_.

Lying aside him on the pull-out couch, Doug gazes back at him with obvious amusement. He trails his fingers after those tiny streaks of light that dance like comets across Warlock’s surface, trying to lure him back from the verge of discorporation. “You nodded off in the middle of the episode,” he explains slowly, caught between curiosity and concern.

Warlock stares at him. Those words don’t make any sense.

“Stay there a sec,” Doug says with a sigh. Giving him one last pat on the back, he slips off the edge of the couch, heads upstairs, and returns a few minutes later with one of the blankets from his bed. He drapes it over Warlock’s back and bundles him up like the strangest of snails.

“Much better,” Doug chuckles. His voice is warmer than the blanket could ever be.

“Self does not require sleep,” Warlock protests, dreadfully confused.

“I know, ‘Lock.”

“Self does not dream.”

“I know.”

Warlock falls silent. His circuits ache in such a peculiar, unfamiliar way. He burrows down under the blanket even more, tucking himself against Doug’s side. The TV starts up again, but even mecha and monsters can’t chase away that disoriented echo within him.

After a few minutes Doug adds, “But even if you did, you know I’d still be here when you woke up, right?”

No answer.

When he peeks under the blanket, Warlock is already fast asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From v3. 
> 
> Wrangling Insomniac Selfsoulfriends: A Primer for the Concerned Technarch.

“This isn’t going to work,” Doug says as he rolls over on his side to look at Warlock. “I’m never going to be able to sleep with you staring at me the whole time.”

“But—”

“Yes, I know you’ve made it your job to make sure I sleep, but as long as you’re doing your job I _can’t_ sleep. We have reached an impasse.”

Warlock narrows his eyes, not buying any of this for a moment.

Ever since Doug’s return from The Great Beyond, as he put it in a rare bout of levity, sleep has been rather hard to come by. At first it was aversion, since he’d already slept far more than his share, but then the nightmares started in and never cared to leave. He managed to hide the resulting insomnia for a few months—which should earn him a record of some sort, considering how closely everyone was watching—but Warlock finally pieced it together and that was the end of avoidance tactics.

Now every night he deals with a grumpy, overbearing techno-organic guardian who not only sets the strictest of bedtimes, but plops down with Doug’s confiscated laptop tucked under his butt and camps there scowling worriedly as he awaits obedience. It’s getting rather bothersome, to be honest, especially since a constant bedtime isn’t exactly the issue.

Those alien eyes glowing eerily in the pitch black of his room certainly keep the monsters from venturing out from under his bed, though.

“Just…” Okay, this sounds weird in his head, but only because of all those maddening social rules, half of which Warlock doesn’t pay any mind to anyway. It would’ve been no big deal when they were younger, but— “Just get over here.” Doug lifts up the edge of the blanket and scoots back against the wall to make room.

Warlock freezes, his expression blank.

The little kernel of panic in Doug’s chest is rapidly growing into something much fiercer, but he holds a stern face and waits. While Warlock hasn’t been as physically affectionate of late, Doug would wager he’s just confused over where the boundaries are as adults. So really this is the perfect solution for everyone…unless he has severely misread nearly everything. There’s that panic again.

Yet there’s a symmetry here that can’t help but bring him comfort—Warlock has always been the one to keep the nightmares at bay. Doug’s return was simply a rehash of the same old terror: infected by the transmode virus, lashing out at his friends, forced into a fight to the death with his dearest pal in all the universe. The cycle broke only because of Warlock’s refusal to give up on him. Now he needs that strength of faith even more.

At last Warlock moves, inching so slowly towards the bed as though he expects Doug to withdraw the invite at any moment. He shifts into a smaller and more compact form, trying to take up as little space as possible as he lies down on the bed and stares cryptically at his selfsoulfriend.

It’s like a sleepover, Doug thinks. The team used to spend so many nights up late sprawled before the TV or pouring over books for their upcoming exams. Heck, half the time Warlock would even supply the furniture. And wasn’t there that one night before the bunk bed debacle…?

So really, this is no different.

(It sure feels different.)

“Query: Does selfsoulfriend require bedtimestory as well?” Warlock asks, breaking the awkward tension with an insufferable little smile.

Doug’s ears go red, and he pointedly turns away onto his side to try and sleep.

 

 

Warlock could watch him forever. He knows he’s not supposed to _say_ things like that, since it only makes his human friends flustered at best, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. As long as his selfsoulfriend’s chest keeps rising and falling, rising and falling, that’s all he needs.

He can tell the exact moment Doug finally nods off. After that it’s only a matter of waiting for the inevitable. This is the real reason Warlock keeps vigil: nine nights out of ten there’s work for him.

An hour or two of easy peace. Better than most nights.

Then a terror in his chest that isn’t his own, his selfsoulfriend tossing and turning with his face twisted into a hurt scowl. Doug kicks once and chokes back a broken breath, reaching out blindly to stop imaginary attackers, but Warlock catches his hands, holds them fast, and hums a lullaby of comforting code against his bare skin. It’s so simple to soothe him through harmonic feedback alone, like calling to like, but Warlock nudges him onto his side again to be certain—his selfsoulfriend does so poorly sleeping on his back.

Nightmares can’t be defeated like dragons. Even Warlock knows it isn’t that simple, knows he’s closer to tilting at windmills than reptiles for all the good he’s doing, but every hour of sleep is a tiny victory. Chasing the terrors away will have to be good enough for now.

Certain that his selfsoulfriend is slumbering peacefully once more, Warlock almost considers a rest state himself. There’s nothing dreams could offer him that real life hasn’t already supplied, though, so he pokes through his mindbank instead and dredges up a bedtime story of his own—the fairy tales they told him as a child, the ones where people always wake up, princes always return, and everyone lives happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I am hereby banned from writing more sleepy snuggles. Hopefully this is out of my system now...


End file.
